Money for nothing puts U.S. in dire straits
Cha-ching!
There goes another billion dollars.
Cha-ching! Cha-ching!
It adds up fast, faster than you can say, “No WMDs!”
That’s how the cost of combat is hitting the United States. A story in the Christian Science Monitor places the cost of the war on terr-uh — that would be Iraq and Afghanistan — at about $500 billion, with the Pentagon asking for yet another $120 billion to $160 billion to fill out fiscal year 2007.
I was thinking about that the other night while watching Robin Williams, Whoopie Goldberg and Billy Crystal as they hosted Comic Relief on HBO. The money from this year’s benefit will go to help rebuild hurricane-torn New Orleans. I’m not sure how much money they raised, but I’ll bet 10 years of pay it wasn’t anywhere close to $500 billion.
One of the comics on the show suggested that the best way to get New Orleans the funds it needs is for the city to leave the Union, buy a couple of nukes and threaten the United States.
If it wasn’t so dreadfully sad it world have been funny.
But, here we are, sitting atop one of the greatest natural disasters in this country’s history and still doing nothing.
The drinking water in New Orleans is still bad. There’s not much food. People are living in trailers. Neighborhoods look like they’ve just been through Shock and Awe II instead of being a part of mainstream America.
There’s no there there, as one pundit once said about another great American city. Only, this time, it’s an accurate representation of New Orleans.
And, this is more than a year after the hurricane struck.
If you took the entire debt of what it would cost to rebuild the city and subtracted it from the $500 billion, there would still be plenty left to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and still buy a new pair of cowboy boots for the Cowboy in Chief. Or, maybe it could provide better benefits for the soldiers who come home missing limbs or other body parts from this exercise in forced democracy.
We could use a chunk of that money to do some serious work on developing an alternative energy source. We could use it for so many things other than a war that even hard-line Republicans are now saying we cannot win militarily.
We spent $361 billion in today money to lose in Korea. We spent $531 billion to lose in Vietnam. How much will the final tab be for the war on terror?
RSS feed
Comments
I think you're talking apples and oranges here, Ed.
The problems in New Orleans go a lot further than money. Those people have been bottle fed on welfare for decades and they probably aren't doing much to help themselves. The government isn't God and it can only do so much.
As far as the money spent on war, I agree. It's a mess.
On a totally unrelated note, Tom and Katie just spent millions to get married after living together and having a child. All that money spent celebrating a done deal could have been better spent in New Orleans.
Posted by: Arlene Ball | November 22, 2006 07:30 AM
I agree with Ed completely with a few additional comments. First if "we" are going to rebuild New Orleans and it is our money and not much of theirs, then we rebuild in a slightly idfferent location, that only makes sense. A little higher ground would be a thought. This Tom and Kate thing is SICK, he is really SICK with a horrible case of SM syndrome!
Posted by: utgopher | November 23, 2006 03:58 PM
As a former troop I support them completely but at some point I have to wonder if my support accually hurts them, do to us keeping the troops in an unwinnable war.
Posted by: Sam Dodd | March 8, 2007 10:58 AM